Are the poor needy? Are the needy poor?

The author would like to acknowledge the helpful comments and critiques made by Forum attendees (in particular Jennifer Orum, Peter Dueck, Mary Pichette and Michael Conlon) and the small financial contribution made by the Foundation to the production of the final version of this paper. [...] The purpose of this paper is to investigate the both the rules that govern need (and hence the award of loans and grants) and the effects of these rules in terms of the distribution of student assistance. [...] In terms of the effect of the work rule on the distribution of assistance – that is to say, does the treatment of children in the need assessment system ensure that money goes to students from low family-income backgrounds? [...] Using age 22 as a proxy for “independence” (it roughly corresponds with the four-years-out-of-high-school rule)5, data from the Canadian Under- graduate Survey Consortium and the Canadian College Survey Consortium sug- gest that the real distribution of the Canadian student population is closer to 70- 30 dependent-independent, which is effectively the inverse of the student assis- 5 In some parts [...] In short, the effect of the independence rule, on its own, is highly regressive in that it allows into the student aid systems students from higher income back- grounds, and gives the most benefit to students from the highest income back- grounds.